World War One tribute for Tour de France 2014

The Tour de France 2014 to pay tribute to the Great War by mainly crossing eastern France.

The Tour will begin in Great Britain on July 5th, 2014 and arrive on the Champs-Elysées in Paris on July 27th. One hundred years after the start of the Great War, cycling's most famous race will pay tribute to the millions killed in one of history's bloodiest conflicts, visiting towns and countryside devastated by four years of fighting. The July 9th stage, for example, will begin in Ypres, Belgium and arrive in Arenberg Porte du Hainaut. Ypres was the setting of one particularly bloody battle.

Another impossible to overlook location is Verdun, the site of one of the war’s longest and most devastating battles. Between Epernay and Nancy, on July 11th, it will be the opportunity to pay tribute to three Tour de France winners: François Faber, Octave Lapize and Lucien Petit-Breton, who are among the several cyclists to die in battle...

The 101st edition of the Tour de France includes six mountain stages in three mountain ranges: the Vosges, the Alps and the Pyrenees. The Tour will also include five summit finishes, including Hautacam, after climbing the Tournalet four days prior to finishing on the Champs-Elysées.

Particular to the Tour de France this year is that there will be only one individual 54 km time-trial between Bergerac and Périgueux the day before the finale. It will be the shortest distance crossed since the first trial of this kind in 1934.

With the inclusion of cobblestone passes in the North (such as in the 2010 edition), mountain stages and just one time-trial, the organizers plan to maintain the suspense of the race until it reaches the finish line.